Messaging service subscribers are generally alerted to new messages in their mailboxes by various types of sensory indicators. In voice mail systems, for example, a subscriber may receive such alert messages via a visual indicator, such as a lit waiting lamp indicator on a telephone set associated with the subscriber's messaging address. Alternatively, the alert message may be an audible indicator, such as a stutter dial tone that is applied to a subscriber's telephone set when the handset of that telephone is off-hook. For electronic mail systems, alert or notification messages of new mail arrival are typically displayed on a subscriber's monitor when the subscriber is logged on to a host connected to the electronic mail system.
One of the drawbacks of those alerting mechanisms is that they notify messaging service subscribers of incoming messages only when the subscribers are accessible at their messaging address. Those alerting mechanisms are clearly ineffective for highly mobile subscribers who are often compelled to place calls to their messaging system for the sole purpose of inquiring about new messages that may be waiting in their mailbox. When no new message is waiting in a subscriber's mailbox, an inquiry call to the messaging system is a waste of time and money.
In an effort to find a solution to this problem, messaging systems planners have designed a notification feature that allows a subscriber to define a so-called "mobile mailbox" for a messaging system that automatically dials out a subscriber's personal pager (beeper) number upon receiving a new message at the subscriber's "fixed" messaging address. Typically, the messaging system delivers to the pager a short message indicative of the header or content of the new message in the subscriber's mailbox. This solution is rather expensive especially when one considers that its implementation requires the use of a paging communications system with national and/or international coverage for highly mobile users. Equally, if not more, expensive are solutions that use either cellular communications networks or intelligent networks to dial personal telephone numbers, such as 500- or 700-prefix telephone numbers, for example, to place calls to messaging service subscribers in order to notify those subscribers of newly arrived messages in their mailboxes. Thus, a problem of the prior art is lack of an affordable alerting mechanism to notify messaging system users of newly arrived message(s) in their mailbox.